


Flotsam

by arienai



Series: VKaz Week 2016 [1]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: M/M, VKaz Week 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:58:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8032315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arienai/pseuds/arienai
Summary: Venom and Miller each find one thing to cling to keep from drowning with the wreckage of their old lives.





	Flotsam

**Author's Note:**

> A fashionably late entry to VKaz Week 2016, which is apparently allowed because y'all are just so damn chill.
> 
> Prompt: Stars

Suffocating, he reached out a hand toward the starlit night and felt another's cover it, pulling him to the surface where he could breathe.

His gasp upon breaking out of the water was a ragged, pitiful, wheezing thing. He'd sucked in air when the shock wave had thrown him back against the Boss's chest and the fire had flash burned the delicate tissues of his lungs. His ears - his head - buzzed and rang like an alarm, gradually fading to static. Perforated eardrums. Still, soft booms and crackles echoed in the firelit distance. 

The hand grabbed the back of his vest, dragging him onto a floating piece of fuselage. Blurrily, through a mist of blood seeping down over and into his eyes he could make out the face of his saviour in the light of the still burning tail boom. He looked so different with his fair hair soaked flat to his scalp, blue eyes so wide the whites showed. "Sir...," he choked, and immediately began to cough.

"Oh thank-- you-- only--" Commander Miller released a breath he'd clearly been holding and spoke to him. He managed to make out a few words. He tried to wipe his eyes, but his hand wouldn't come to his face. Miller reached out and brushed the blood away for him, very, very carefully. 

That's when he saw who Miller was holding, and he let out his own sigh of relief. His Boss: unconscious, but still breathing. Miller had an arm around his chest, under his arms, holding him out of the water. A good idea. He probably had broken ribs at least, if not a broken back. From the colour of his face he was probably bleeding internally.

They both were. A glance down at himself revealed a dizzying collage of lacerations and embedded shrapnel; many to the bone, all of them hemorrhaging, with no way of stopping any of it. 

He lay on the warm steel a while, bobbing in the cool waves. He was no longer in pain, which was a very, very bad sign. Miller was looking at him, as if he could say or do something to help. To save their Boss. It was so hard to focus; there were helicopters somewhere in the distance, but they could just as likely be there to kill survivors as to save them. Rescue would be hours away, if it came at all. 

But there was something he could do. He swallowed, and with his best, gentlest bedside voice he rasped, "Sir, in a few minutes I'll be unconscious. In ten I'll be dead. So will he. You're the only one of us who has a chance of surviving this without... immediate medical assistance. That makes you more important than us. Do whatever you need to do to live." _Push me off this wreckage when you need it so that you don't get hypothermic; don't sink to the bottom of the ocean with him._

He knew he'd made a mistake when Miller's eyes widened even further. Miller's grasp on his Boss and the wreckage tightened and Miller started breathing so hard and so quickly that even he could hear him. Hyperventilation on land was a self-resolving problem, but if he fainted in the water, he could die. Then the Boss would die. All three of them would. 

He wrestled with his arms until one of them finally obeyed, and reached for Miller's. "Hey... Sir. Sir? Look up."

Miller did, shaking under his touch. "What am I looking at?" He hissed through chattering teeth. 

"You're from Japan, aren't you?" Everything was so quiet now. Just the lapping of the waves. "I was there once. There was a festival, and someone told me it was for two stars. Vega and Altair."

Miller blinked for the first time in too long, finally distracted. His pulse slowed. "Orihime and Hikoboshi. That's Tanabata."

"Sounds about right," he smiled, tracing slow, soothing circles on the back of Miller's hand. "What was their story again?"

A shiver ran through Miller but he didn't take his eyes off the sky, still holding his Boss tightly. "Lovers who couldn't be. They can only meet once a year." 

"Hm, they don't look that far apart to me," he lied. There were no stars anymore. Just Miller's face, fading. "How many stars are there between them? Count them for me. Please." 

Miller's jaw clenched, but his breathing started to slow. "One..." He locked his eyes skyward. "Two, three..."

He laid his head down to the sound of Miller counting. He was gone before he heard more than twelve.

 

* * *

He stands at the edge of the platform gripping the rails with both hands, one flesh and one metal, eyes on the night sky. Maybe if he holds on tightly enough he can keep this thought from slipping away like so many other sinking pieces. He knows the names of these stars, but each one is a spike driven through his skull and the agony rips the words out of his mouth before he can speak them. Paper lanterns, drifting on a river at night, like floating constel--

Never. Happened.

"Vega?" No, Orihime--

YOU DON'T KNOW THAT WORD.

He doubles over and clutches his temples. Behind him faintly he can hear the three uneven clangs of Kaz's footsteps passing him by. Kaz has been so distant from him these past weeks. It's only grown worse since the hallucinations started; he's losing everything along with his mind. 

"...And Altair..." he says, coming out like a sob.

He opens his eyes when he feels Kaz's hand laid atop his own, braced awkwardly against the railing to keep from falling. He pulls Kaz to his side, chagrined, even though he's in so much pain he's gasping for air.

"They don't seem that far apart to me," Kaz whispers, and raises his hand toward the starlight, where he can breathe. "One, two, three..."


End file.
